Kukla's Korner Hockey

Alex Radulov’s Kontinental Hockey League team has been eliminated from the league’s playoffs, creating a fervor that the suspended Predators forward could return to Nashville this season. Still, there is no definitive news on Radulov at this moment.

Radulov’s agent, Jay Grossman, said that there was “no change in his status,” as of Friday afternoon.

Radulov has one season and $980,000 left on his Nashville contract. If Radulov were to return to North America this season, that would be fulfilled and he would become a restricted free agent in the NHL.

“We’ve had more meetings than I’d like to remember in terms of talking to Rad or to his agent, and it’s really up to him. We laid all the groundwork for him to come back, whenever that is going to be. But I think the groundwork has been laid over the last couple of years, and it has been available to take that opportunity. He’s the one who’s going to have to make that decision….

If the league allows this, it will be a slap in the face to every single little bitch and moan about the “spirit of the CBA.”

Alexander Radulov should be required to serve a suspension and have his contract tolled if he walks back to the NHL only after his KHL team is eliminated from the playoffs. Half of the goddamned spirit of the CBA is written to prevent primadonna players from vacationing in foreign leagues until right before the NHL playoffs.

This isn’t about being a Red Wings fan and seeing a player potentially joining the Predators at the last minute. If Jiri Hudler had done the same thing two Februaries ago (and if he had actually signed his arbitrator-awarded contract before doing the walk to the KHL in the first place), my answer would have been the same.

Supposedly waivers and playoff eligibility are not factors, as he has an active contract. However, I do believe that the PA would shut this down, because not reporting for three years should nullify the contract. As J.J. said, this would simply become a new loophole for stashing players in Europe. Even if it could be done, would Poile do him that favor? He would be extremely unlikely to re-sign there.

Posted by
tuxedoTshirt
from the Home of the 1937 World Champions on 03/09/12 at 07:41 PM ET

The talk I saw the other day about this is that he does not because the NHL and NHLPA would allow an exception in his case.

Now I understand the anger in your post.

Posted by
mrfluffy
from A wide spot on I-90 in Montana on 03/09/12 at 07:46 PM ET

I could have sworn that the rule was that any player who plays in a professional league outside the NHL after the NHL’s regular season begins in October of one year has to clear re-entry waivers to return to the NHL before July 1st of the following summer…This would be fishy and then some.

The talk I saw the other day about this is that he does not because the NHL and NHLPA would allow an exception in his case.

I understand that technically the circumstances are different (since Radulov does have a contract), but wasn’t it this type of thing that led to the current rule about a player having to pass through waivers (ie. Turco this year, Nabakov last year)?

The arguments against the move presented in this discussion are painfully fan-fabulous and stem exclusively from the fear of Nashville adding a scorer to their roster. This is a player who has been under contract for several years. It is not akin to the Nabokov signing at all. It is more akin to Steve Sullivan getting up from his sickbed and playing after being there for more than a year. No one was “stashed” anywhere in this case, nor would any player deliberately sign for an NHL club, break the contract, bolt to Russia, and come back for the NHL playoffs four years later. If Nashville could decide, Radulov would have played for them in 08-09, 09-10, 10-11, and this season. The player broke his contract, and his contract has been tolled all these years. Stashing players in Euro leagues does not apply to this case at all. Besides, Radulov could easily derail the Predators train, the diva that he is. I don’t see how he could seamlessly fit on a scoring line and everyone in the Preds locker room being happy about it.

Except for Radulov wasn’t sick, he abandoned his contract to play in a different league and shouldn’t have the right to set the terms of his own return such as this.

It’s a bad precedent to set.

You let him show up for the last 10 games of the season and that counts as the last year of his deal. So the next time some primadonna isn’t happy with the way things are going on his entry-level deal, he wanders off for a few years only to come back and play some ridiculously small amount of games before he has the ability to set some new terms on how he can play?

How is this fair to the rest of the players in the NHL who have fought in the AHL or NHL all season long for the roster spot that Radulov would dance right back into? The entire reason that the rule exists to have forced guys like Nabokov and Wellwood back through waivers is SPECIFICALLY to defeat things like this.

Radulov shouldn’t be welcomed back, he should be punished for breaking the terms of his contract in the first place. Personally, I would rather that the Predators have gotten a compensatory pick and Radulov banned completely from the NHL for this shit, but the league still thinks the KHL is too much of a threat to shut their doors on a guy like that. The absolute LEAST they can do is make him play more than half a season to burn off the last year of that entry-level deal instead of giving him tabula rasa.

Of course the arguments are fan-fabulous, but you’ve locked yourself pretty tightly inside a shell of stupidity to say that it’s only because of some fear of the Preds. It’s a completely ridiculous argument that ignores the concept that allowing Radulov to play this season and counting that as the last year served on his contract is simply the wrong thing to do.

I could see this happening if a player is traded to a team he doesn’t care for, too. Go off and play a few years in Europe, then come back and by mutual agreement play a few weeks to “fulfill his obligation” and then take his talents elsewhere in the NHL, after he has saved his current team a lot of money and demonstrated to the team he wants to go to that he is up to speed in the NHL.

If Nabokov had to actually PLAY a year to fulfill the partial year contract that he signed, I think Radulov has to do the same. Ten games shouldn’t count as the last year of his deal. It’s just not fair to everyone else and gets him off very lightly for leaving a team in the lurch when they could have used him.